KAMPALA: The UN Security Council on Thursday voted unanimously for a new African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.
Uganda, which was the first African country to put troops on the ground in 2007, has more than 6,200 soldiers serving with the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
Its current contingent is commanded by Brig Keith Katungi and is mandated to secure strategic installations which include the UN compound, the Presidential Palace and key government installations as well as the Airport.
The new force to be named “The African Union Transition Mission in Somalia” (ATMIS) will work to enable Somali forces to take responsibility for security, replacing the current AMISOM mission, whose mandate was set to expire Thursday.
The United Arab Emirates, which holds the UN Security Council’s rotating presidency this month, announced the resolution’s adoption, noting that it was the fruit of “several months of constructive exchanges,” reports the defencepost.com.
A source in AMISOM tells our Top Secrets news desk that nothing much will happen as of now.
“Conduct of operations continues under a different name, from AMISOM to ATMIS. But ATMIS is a transition phase for us to prepare to hand over to Somalis to manage their country,” says the source.
Somalia, where Al-Shabaab insurgents have been seeking to overthrow the fragile government for more than a decade, will be expected to manage their affairs by 2024 when the last ATMIS soldier leaves Mogadishu.
The reduction of more than 20,000 AMISOM/ATMIS soldiers will be carried out on a 9,9,6 months schedule till the last man leaves.
Our AMISOM sources tell us that ATMIS is meant to have more mobile and agile operations as opposed to area defence operations to rid the country of the insurgent Al-shabaab.
“ATMIS forces will then hand over Forward Operations Bases (FOBs) to the Somali National Army (SNA) which is expected to recruit and train forces to replace ATMIS boots on ground by 2024,” adds the source.
MediaScape News understands that under ATMIS, the Troop Contributing Countries which include the African countries of Uganda, Kenya and Burundi, among others, are expected to bring in more force multipliers (enablers) like planes and surveillance capabilities, as they reduce boots on the ground.
Under the approved UN resolution, the new mission is projected to gradually decrease staffing levels from nearly 20,000 soldiers, police, and civilians to zero by the end of 2024.
Defence Post reports further that the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres earlier this month endorsed a continuation of the mission, and recommended that force reduction proceed in four phases, beginning after the end of the year.
The adopted resolution includes that framework but endorses the drawdown of 2,000 personnel this year.
Amid the ongoing diplomatic crisis due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the United States welcomed the “rare” opportunity “to help shape the transition of a mission.”
Richard Mills, the US deputy ambassador to the UN, in a statement praised the efforts to find a “credible, shared vision of how to more actively counter Al-Shabaab and transition the responsibility for security to the Somali security forces.”
He noted that Al-Shabaab is “Al-Qaeda’s largest and best-financed affiliate” and remains a “formidable and adaptable threat to Somalia, and to East Africa more broadly.”
Somalia has seen a spate of Al-Shabaab attacks in recent weeks as the Horn of Africa nation hobbles through a long-delayed election process.
Last week, twin attacks in the center of the country claimed 48 lives.
The United States, Somalia’s key foreign backer, has imposed travel sanctions on senior political figures for undermining the electoral process.
The lower house election was due to be completed on Thursday, paving the way for lawmakers to pick a president.
President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed‘s term ended in February 2021 but efforts to hold an election have failed.
The jihadists controlled Mogadishu until 2011 when they were pushed out by AMISOM troops, but still hold territory in the countryside.